YOLO: You Only Lose Originality

Drake takes to Instagram against products using his trademark ‘YOLO,’ but he was far from the first to use the infamous acronym.

Let’s get this right. Drake is upset because he found YOLO fitted caps on sale in his local Walgreens. So, he more or less jokingly asks for the family pharmacy to “chill or cut the cheque.” But unbeknownst to the typical YOLO-ing teenagers you’ll find on Twitter, YOLO cannot be fully attributed to the rapper’s hit song “The Motto.”

Back in 2006, indie rock band The Strokes released the song “You Only Live Once” on their album First Impressions of Earth, originally thrusting the meaningful phrase into the hipster scene. YOLO came in when the band started “Operation YOLO” where they requested their fans to popularize the song on radio stations and MySpace profiles.

In fact, 81 trademarks already contain the phrase going all the way back to 1977, so it’s pretty pointless for the rapper to stake a claim. I’m not sure whether to feel bad for Drake, who’s seeing a simple phrase he used turned into a cultural phenomenon and not getting any dues for it, or for all of those Strokes fans with “You Only Live Once” tattoos that quickly became awkward.